Santa Lives in Rovaniemi, Finland. Some of His Neighbors Are Not Thrilled.

Asia Pacific|Santa Lives in Rovaniemi, Finland. Some of His Neighbors Are Not Thrilled.

After dinner at the Bull Bar and Grill in the small Finnish city of Rovaniemi, Mariel Tähtivaara, a law student, popped into a supermarket to grab some dessert.

As she perused the chocolate mousses, a short woman with dark hair walked up to her, shaking a milk carton.

“Excuse me,” she said in English with a Spanish or maybe Italian accent. “But can you tell me if this has lactose?”

Ms. Tähtivaara scanned the label — in Finnish — and told her no.

Then, as Ms. Tähtivaara was moving through the cookie and cracker aisle, a man with his wife and small child, puffed up in heavy jackets for a winter holiday, held up a cracker package.

“Do these have cheese in them?” he asked.

She saw more tourists in snowmobile suits lingering by the cashier. Before they could make eye contact, she got out of there.

“I was thinking: Here we go again,” she said.

These were small impositions, but enough was enough. If you’re blond and therefore identifiable as a likely native of Rovaniemi, you can barely move around a supermarket during tourist season — and it’s all Santa’s fault.